Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Kengo and Shuhei Terada were welcomed back to the Frontale fold with a 4-0 spanking at the hands of Omiya Ardija on Tuesday afternoon.

Back in sunny Miyazaki, a near full-strength side conceded their first match of the 2009 pre-season - and with some style. Still, I'm a firm believer that if you're going to get embarrassed by J1 opponents, better to do it when it doesn't count.

The line-up looks a little strange on paper, with Mori and Yamagishi playing either side of Terada and Ito in a back four. Yusuke Tasaka up front with Chong Tese and Kurotsu is also something of a novelty. But the midfield of Kengo, Taniguchi and Vitor Junior is certainly what you'd expect to see starting against Kashiwa next month.

I suppose you could also point to Aizawa in goal instead of Kawashima as a weakness, but I'd hazard that it was the experimental defense that brought about the one-sided result.

A B-Team was also in action with two 45-minute games against J2's FC Gifu and Hoyo Atletico Elan of the Oita Prefectural League. The Gifu game was lost 1-0, but they managed to overcome the Oita amateurs 2-0 with Noborizato and Kimura getting their names on the scoresheet again. Yokoyama continues to feature in midfield...watch this space!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Frontale maintained their 100% pre-season record with a 2-0 victory over J2's Shonan Bellmare on Saturday.

All the post-match talk surrounded young Kyohei Noborizato who registered his first goal as a professional player. And, by all accounts, it was a fairly dazzling effort.

The 18-year-old midfielder signed from Kagawa Nishi High School at the end of last year and was set to star in the national high school championship in January before injury ruled him out in the early stages.

Instead it was Kashima Antlers' recent acquisition Yuya Osako who went on to take the limelight in that competition and become labelled as Japan's brightest young prospect. But with both players opening their professional accounts this weekend the press has been quick to draw comparisons between the two.

Slightly dubious as to what stock should be put in this kind of press hype. Personally, I'd like to know more about Anonymous Trainee - he sounds like a real talent!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Another game of four quarters, although this time 35 minutes each as opposed to the half-hour chunks against Nagasaki (just in case anyone was wondering whether Yuji Kimura was the only man still playing when he scored in the 139th minute!).

Played behind closed doors, this match saw more of Frontale's second-string frontmen sharing the spoils and staking their claims to those all important spots on the subs' bench in what will be a packed 2009 schedule.

Kukino's already registered a few J.League goals in seasons past, and Kurotsu's obviously a well-established member of the team, but it would be nice to see Kimura get a chance to show what he can do at the top level this year. He's shown remarkable potential with some of his perfomances in the Satellite League and will hopefully have ample opportunity to impress Sekizuka this pre-season.

One other point of interest is that Tomonobu Yokoyama has been listed as playing in midfield for both pre-season games so far. Is Sekizuka looking to shore things up at the back by converting the young centre-back into a holding midfielder? In the few games he played last season he certainly looked very comfortable on the ball.

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Don't know if Frontale have been brushing up on Roman numerals over the winter holidays, but they contrived to stick V goals past V-Varen Nagasaki (recently promoted to the JFL - Japan's 3rd division) in their first pre-season outing of 2009.

The game was played over 4 quarters with most of the squad getting a run out. There was no Kengo, Kawashima or Terada (due to their involvement in the Japan squad set to face Australia on Wednesday) and both Juninho and Renatinho were rested. However, Vitor Junior played the first half and Chong Tese got his name on the scoresheet before jetting off to join the North Korean squad for their World Cup qualifier against Saudi Arabia.

Nice to see new-/old-boy Yajima notching one up so quickly. Hopefully he'll be able to put some pressure on last season's front three and make sure they're earning their places in the starting line-up.